


Safe Harbor

by tenacious_err



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenacious_err/pseuds/tenacious_err
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby is put on guard duty. Hook finds her infuriating, and intriguing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Harbor

**Author's Note:**

> So, apparently, I started shipping two characters who, of this posting, have never actually met. I like the idea of them, and though I doubt anything close to this will play out I thought it was worth writing and seeing how their dynamic could be. I hope it feels true to both characters. :)

They keep Hook under watch, with different lovely inhabitants of the town taking turns. He enjoys seeing how long it takes to break them. When the newest one comes in, a woman wearing a ridiculous amount of red, he smiles. 

“Are you my guard dog today?” 

She smiles, as if something he said is hilarious. “You could say that.” 

His gaze moves up and down her. Is Storybrooke full of beautiful women? He should have come here sooner. “All these lovely ladies,” he says, “and I'm at such a disadvantage.” He jingles the handcuff attached to his one hand to underline the point. He grins. “Unless, of course, you're into this sort of thing. Then I'm all ready.”

Her eyes narrow at him. Great, Storybrooke is full of beautiful, uptight women. She leans back against the door and he thinks it's going to be a very silent watch, but then she pushes forward and steps beside him. 

“Belle is a good person, and a good friend.”

“Was, really,” he says. “Who knows what she'll end up being now?”

Her jaw clenches, but she doesn't attack him like Emma would. There's an interesting amount of restraint in that. It annoys him. He closes his eyes to feign disinterest. 

“She was pretty, Belle. Don't know what she saw in the Crocodile. If anything, I'm doing her a favor.”

“Taking away someone's choice is never a favor,” she says. 

“No,” he agrees. “Which is why I took away Rumpelstiltskin’s. Who cares about another spoiled princess?” 

He looks at her. Her eyes widen. Anger is there, but then it's gone. She's taking entirely too long to crack. 

“Belle sees the good in everyone,” she says. “I've heard that includes you.”

“She lived in a tower for years,” he says. “She has exactly as much real world experience as one would need to see good in that man. I've just given her a clean slate to see the good in another monster. Who knows, maybe she and I can have a good time after-”

“Stop,” the woman says. His eyes scan her face. 

“Are you going to make me?”

“No,” she says. 

He can't get her to speak again after that, not even when he suggests some particularly lewd things about what wearing so much red says about a woman. It's no fun. He frowns and sinks back into the bed. At least the view is good. 

*

Ruby knows she shouldn't talk to him, but the next time she's put on watch she can't help it. “Why couldn't you just attack Gold?”

“I would do anything to make him suffer. Why would I kill him? That would ruin it.”

Ruby shakes her head. “You aren't the only one to have lost a love, you know.”

“No, but shockingly, that doesn't mean he should suffer any less.” 

“Having a hook for a hand doesn't mean you get to be a monster.”

“I'm not a monster.” 

“Attacking someone that has nothing to do with your personal vengeance might disagree with that statement.”

“Belle was a means to an end, nothing more, nothing less.” 

“Heroes don't use means to ends.”

Hook laughs. “Is that all you think exists in the world, heroes and monsters? What a small village you must come from.”

Ruby looks away from him. “It's not about what you are,” she says. “It's about what you do with it.”

“Very insightful, that. Am I doomed to be tied to this bed listening to your wisdom for eternity?” 

She rolls her eyes, and hates the obvious pride he takes in it. 

*

It's easy enough to break away from Archie. One fake bout of tears and a headbutt later he's reunited with his hook and on a run through the woods. He can get to his ship from here, and go wherever he wants. It doesn't matter, just so long as he isn't tied down. 

When he hears the sound of running behind him he half-expects it to be Rumpelstiltskin coming to finish him. He doesn't expect Ruby. He covered his tracks, and didn't take a straight path. How did she find him so fast? He sees one of the sheets from that blasted hospital bed clutched in her hand and frowns. 

“That's thoughtful, love, but I have my own blankets.”

“You can't leave,” she says. 

“You can't stop me.”

“You really don't want to start a fight with me,” she warns. As if to prove her point she circles him so that she's standing directly in his path to freedom. 

The truth is, he doesn't care. His vengeance on Rumpelstiltskin is done. The only thing he has left is his ship, and he intends to get to it. Some waif of a girl isn't going to stop him. 

“Out of my way,” he says, before adding a dry, “please.”

That's when her eyes flash yellow. “You picked a very bad time of the month to try your escape.”

“Unexpected,” he says, intrigued. “A wolf? I thought your kind were a myth.”

“A myth like the legendary Captain Hook?”

“Fair enough,” he agrees. His eyes scan her from head to foot. “Tell me, are you extra hairy all the time or just when you're in form?” 

“What's wrong with you?”

He grins. “I can you show you all the things that aren't wrong with me, if you want to come back to my ship. If not, then this is goodbye my dear.”

He walks past her only to feel her hand around his wrist. He could attack her, but he can see in her eyes that he's not at all a match for what she can become. 

“I don't want to hurt you,” she says. 

“Who says I wouldn't want that?” he asks. 

Her hand tightens around his wrist. “More pain isn't the way to stop pain,” she says, so quietly he wouldn't hear it if they weren't already so close together. He jerks his hand away from her and walks away. 

“Stop! I can stop you, Hook. I can-”

“Ah, yes,” he says. “I have no doubt your little ability would let you eat me whole if you wanted. It's more a matter of whether you would use it.” He steps back toward her so that he could kiss her if he moved just a little closer. “You shouldn't let your bluff be so easily called, love.”

“You're right,” she says. “I wouldn't use the wolf on you.” He grins, exorbitantly pleased with himself for winning. In his pride, he doesn't see the headbutt coming.

When he wakes up, back in the hospital, she's leaning over him. “Archie was only trying to help you. If you don't stop messing with my friends, I will eat you.”

She's bluffing. Or, at least, he thinks she's bluffing. He tries for a growl to twist her words into sexual appeal, but groans as a throb runs through his head. Good god, is her head made of steel? She smiles a small, wicked smile. 

So, not just a pretty face after all. Interesting. 

*

“What happened to yours?” 

The question takes Ruby off-guard. It's been days since they spoke, not since she found him in the forest. “My what?”

“Your love.” Her eyes widen. He rolls his. “Oh, it's obvious in the way you carry yourself. In the way you speak about love.”

She shouldn't tell him. Even in the town, very few people know what actually happened to her. Belle told her about Hook's story, though, and Hook has been very vocal about how Rumpelstiltskin was the one who killed his love. 

“I didn't know I was a wolf for a very long time,” she says, quietly. “I thought it was him. I thought we could work through it, that he couldn't help it. I thought if we were alone in the woods, if he was tied up for safety...”

“Ah,” he says. 

“I couldn't control it yet,” she says, even though she doesn't have to say anymore. 

He nods. “But you did learn to harness it,” he says. 

“I learned to not think of it as a curse.” 

He watches her for a very long moment. With Snow there was always pity and encouragement when it came to her situation. With him, there is understanding somehow. “I could have used you in my fight with Rumpelstiltskin.”

“Except I would never have helped you hurt Belle,” she says.

“No,” he agrees. “You would have tried to stop me. It would have made it more interesting.” 

She shakes her head. “You're impossible.”

“Just playing hard to get,” he says. 

She lets out a sigh of annoyance and collapses into a nearby seat. Still, she finds she can't help but smile a little. 

*

The next time she comes, he's ready. “Dear Henry has been telling me all about little red riding hood.”

“Henry has been here?” she asks. “That won't happen again.” 

“Yes, his mom – or should I say moms – would not be pleased. Interesting that an evil witch queen and Rumpelstiltskin are allowed free in this town while I remain locked here.” 

“You're still recovering.”

“Barely. I assume after I do heal you'll allow me free with all the other criminals?” Her hesitation is answer enough. “Ah, no. I'll be regulated to a cell then? Lovely. I am getting quite fond of these handcuffs.” 

“It's not that simple and you know it,” Ruby says. 

“And why not? How is that man free while I rot here?” 

“Because you shot Belle!” He thinks it's the first time he's seen her truly angry. Belle must still not have her memory, then. Good. 

“He killed many more,” he says. “He murdered Milah.”

“And you spent the rest of your life going after him,” she says. She turns away from him and crosses her arms over her chest. “I wish you wouldn't forfeit your life too.”

“You can't possible understand-”

“I can,” she yells. Ah, so that's the anger she controls so well. Fierce, and strong, like her. But all he can see now is Milah's face, and the Crocodile's.

“Having your love stolen from you – watching her heart crushed in front of your eyes – is hardly the same thing as eating your boyfriend,” he says. 

Hurt mixes with the anger. Ruby slaps him, and he doesn't find the pleasure in breaking her control that he thought he would. He doesn't find anything. 

“Look-” he says, but she's already gone. A very angry Prince Charming comes to guard him after that. He thinks the prince's glare may be intended to kill him by pure force of will. Maybe it would be better if it did.

*

The next time Ruby comes to see him, he's been moved to a cell in Emma's office. He smiles when he sees her, but she can already see the calculations running in his mind. 

“Ah, my dear wolf,” he says. “I thought you would just have the rest of the town glare at me on your behalf. To what do I owe the honor? Another slap, perhaps?”

“They're loyal,” she says. 

“That's cute,” he says. 

“As cute as staying with the same woman on a pirate ship?” she asks. 

His face turns to a near snarl. “What are you here for?”

“To tell you that I accept what I am. You don't.”

“What's that? A hero?”

“No. You could have killed Belle, but you didn't. What you did shows humanity. It shows what you could be. You loved Milah. What self-respecting pirate loves one woman? I did hear stories about you, Hook. You know what I didn't hear about? Rape, or murder. What pirate doesn't murder freely?” 

“So now I should see the error of my ways and grab a sword and defend honor?”

She glares at him. “Now you should see yourself, and not what Rumpelstiltskin made you.”

“He didn't make me.”

“He did. Maybe you should thank him, if you like it so much.” 

She turns on her heels and leaves.

*

The next time he sees her it's just a very brief view before she, Emma, Snow and Charming end up in a huddle. He can just barely hear their low whispers as they shift and move out of his range of vision. 

“He deserves a chance,” Red says. 

“He shot Belle!” Snow says. 

Silence. 

His hand wraps around the bars as he presses himself forward so he can hear her. He couldn't care less about this cell, or about what the rest of them think. 

“Everyone deserves a second chance. You, of all people, must believe that Snow.”

“It's not the same,” Snow argues.

“We all have pasts,” Red argues. “No one here is without some past moment of shame.”

“None of us are murderous pirates,” Charming says. 

“Sometimes,” Red says, and this part he barely hears, “we were only good because a friend was there to help us see what is right. Can we deny him because he was without that?” 

There is some more grumbling and mumbling and a few more heated words from Emma and Charming. She has more weight than he would have guessed. A fierce wolf-woman with Snow White's ear. He imagines she has quite a few stories to tell. Worse, he wants to listen to them. 

*

“You're a wench?”

Ruby looks up from behind the diner's counter, not at all surprised by the words or who said them. Hook wears a large, black bracelet now. One designed for those under house arrest, but the best Emma could scrounge up for their situation. This one is specially endowed with a touch of fairy magic, so that if he leaves the town he'll be frozen in place until they go to get him. 

The entire diner is staring at him, but he ignores them. 

“That's not how it works here,” she says. 

“Too bad, I like wenches.” He sits on one of the stools. “Do you have ale here?” She passes him a cup of water. He stares at it. “Is it possible that instead of a world without magic you lot were actually just transported to hell?”

“Well, you're here,” she says. 

“Cheeky. You're sure you're not a wench?” 

She leans closer to him. “Positive.” 

It's impossible to miss the way his face lights up, or the smile she can't seem to stop. 

*

Of course she finds him when he's trying to figure out how to start this ridiculous contraption of a motorcycle. It seems most useful, but the machinery is all buttons and no guidance. He misses his simple ship and complex navigation tools. 

“Are you stealing that?” she asks.

He puts his hand over his heart with an exaggerated sweep of his arm. “I'm wounded. I am merely borrowing this machinery to learn the ways of this world.” 

Ruby looks at him, then the motorcycle. She sits down on it and with a twist of her hands it comes alive beneath her. “Well?” she asks, looking expectantly behind her. 

He shakes his head as he takes the back seat and wraps his arms around her for lack of a better grip. (Whether or not he would choose to put them elsewhere if there was a grip, well, that would be up for debate.) “I'll have you know I've never let another captain me.”

“Get used to it. Without your ship, you're not even a captain in the first place.”

He leans in closer to her as the machine takes off. “I have been called many things in this town, you know.” 

“Shocking.” They keep moving across the roads in the town until she stops at a pier, but not the one his boat is at. She stops the motorcycle and kicks out something that helps it stay balanced before making her way to the water.

“And what,” he asks, unable to drop this subject as he follows her closer to the water, “would you call me?”

She doesn't answer, and he thinks she won't. Then, “Killian.”

“Not Captain Hook?”

“You don't have a ship or your hook.”

“Fair enough. But I will one day. You should come away with me.”

“To do what? Turn into a wolf in the middle of the sea?”

“I could handle you,” he says, in a tone that implies it wouldn't be unpleasant.

“You're disturbed.”

He shrugs. “Doesn't seem to send you running.”

“And the fact that I could eat you?”

He pauses. He can see the hesitation in her, the insecurity. Why would she be insecure about such power? She should wield it. The magic users in the town may put up a fight with her, but otherwise she's easily stronger than anyone else here. Why wouldn't she use that?

“That's a pretty neat party trick, don't you think?”

“No,” she says. “I don't. 

“For someone who embraces themselves, you're very uncertain,” he says. 

“I'm cautious,” she says. 

He steps closer to her until there's very little space between them. She never looks away, never flinches. He leans forward to kiss her, and gets her cheek when she turns her head at the last minute. 

She steps away from him. “You saw how to work the motorcycle,” are her last words before she runs off. 

*

Ruby isn't at all surprised when, a week later, she comes to open the diner and finds Killian leaning lazily against the door. “What are you doing?”

“Feeling my life slip away,” he groans. “This town is boring. I could have skipped the whole life-vengeance if I'd known it would be so dry afterward.”

She glares at him for the comment. When she opens the door, he files in right behind her. She whirls around to face him. 

“What do you want?” she demands. 

“You, obviously,” he replies. “You can't be that dense.” 

The words seem to freeze her. 

“Ruby? What's going on here?” 

The only thing surprising about her grandmother's appearance is that she isn't holding a crossbow to ward off Hook. Ruby shakes her head and turns away from him. “Nothing,” she says. “Did you want breakfast, Killian?”

He sits down with a smug grin on his face. “I hear scrambled eggs are delicious.” He tilts his head and waits until she meets his gaze. “Among other things.”

She leans forward towards him. There's something about this dance they're doing that gives her power. Something in the way he looks at her that makes her feel strong. She knows she's playing with fire. If Grandma's stare is any indication, she has a high chance of ending up burned. 

“Comparing a woman to food is not a hugely romantic gesture in this world. Or ours, for that matter,” she says. 

He grins and leans forward to close what space is left between them. “And what would count as a hugely romantic gesture, I wonder?”

She tilts her head and watches him, lets his face and scent sink into her memory. “Returning Belle's memory.” 

He leans back, and she knows she's thrown sand on the fire. “You know I can't do that.”

“I know you won't,” she says. “Enjoy your scrambled eggs.”

*

He knew it would be Red who found him. He doesn't care. This ship isn't meant to be manned by just one person, but he's Captain Hook and he can manage it. He feels the tinge in his bracelet, warning him. He's never been a very good listener. 

“What are you doing?” she demands. He glances over at her. 

“Any man who steps on my ship unbidden would normally be thrown overboard and left to the sharks,” he says. 

She ignores him. “You can't do this.” 

“I can, and I will,” he says. “I will have my freedom.”

“You'll just be frozen,” she says. “You know that.”

“Perhaps that will be better than this. There's only one way to find out.”

“Please, don't.” He doesn't understand how someone can be so fierce and soft at the same time. The world, her ability, should have long since hardened her. How can that gentleness last? He grits his teeth against her plea. 

“You've no right to ask anything of me,” he says. 

She balls her fists up at her side. “You attacked one of the few people in this town who was nothing but kind to me. You took her away, erased her. At least Milah died knowing she loved you, knowing her choice was right.”

“Don't you dare speak her name,” he growls. 

“I hate Rumpelstiltskin,” she says. “I hate that Belle loves him. I think it's a terrible choice. But it's a choice, and it's only hers.”

“She is his heart,” he says. Then, quieter, “As Milah became mine. It was a fair trade.”

“Not for Belle it wasn't. Stop talking about her like she's a thing. We will find a way to fix her memory, and what happens then? You wipe her memory again – or kill her? Because of the choice she made? She would want you to be happy, you know.” Ruby shakes her head. At least she understands how absurd that is. “She wants everyone to be happy. And anyone who saw good in the dark one will surely see good in everyone. And you took that away from the world.”

Perhaps he was wrong in thinking Ruby less naïve than Belle. “Anyone who sees the good in everyone sees nothing.”

“Or everything important,” Ruby replies. 

They stand there, staring. She wouldn't know how to stop him from steering the ship out into the water. 

He goes down to the cargo hold and comes back with a bottle of brandy and two mugs. She eyes it warily. He tosses her one of the dusty old mugs. 

“If you won't let me have oblivion from this blasted bracelet, then you cannot deny me oblivion from this.” 

She watches him, but doesn't protest when he fills up her mug and then his. 

“Have you ever heard of a land called Neverland?” he asks. 

“No,” she says. It's something, if not an invitation to regale her in a tale then he'll take it as that anyway. 

“Well, let me tell you a story, my dear wolf...”

*

Ruby wakes sprawled out across Killian's ship. He's snoring loudly a few feet from her. She grimaces and sits upright, resting her head against the side of the ship. Maybe she shouldn't have come. She could have easily let him sail away. No, she couldn't have. She rubs her forehead, halfheartedly hoping to rub the thought away. 

He looks peaceful asleep. It doesn't fit him at all. 

“Come out!” a voice bellows. Ruby's skin goes cold when she recognizes it. Carefully she crawls forward, low enough not to be seen, and puts a hand over Killian's mouth. 

He grunts and jerks up but she puts a finger over her lips. He grins then, and she rolls her eyes. “Stay down,” she whispers. She stands up and looks over the ship to where Belle's father is standing on the docks. 

“I know Hook is in there,” he growls. “I've been put in circles all over Storybrooke but finally I've found him.” 

She acts without thinking. “He's not here,” she says. Belle's father's eyes narrow at her. She squares her shoulders back and meets his gaze. “I wanted to find him too,” she says. “I was waiting for him here, but he hasn't arrived yet.”

Belle's father crosses his arms over his chest. “I'll wait, too.”

Ruby shakes her head. “No, there's no point in us both being here. You go back to Belle. I think he may try to strike at her again. I will tell you if I find him.” Belle's father wavers, but doesn't move. She speaks softly, “Belle should be surrounded by those who love her now. It may help her regain her memory.” 

Grudgingly, her father stomps off after a few heated words about what he'll do when he finally finds Hook. Ruby can't believe that people have been putting him off the trail in the first place. She can imagine Archie doing it. Archie believes in Regina, so believing in Killian isn't a leap. She'd thought the rest of the town wouldn't be so defensive, though. Perhaps Storybrooke has taught them to see the best in others. To believe in second chances. 

She looks back over her shoulder to where Hook is grinning smugly at her. She ignores it. This town would slip into utter chaos without the amnesty that has been allowed to those who wronged others. 

That's not really something that would have ever passed in their world, she knows. So many things were certain there. Black and white. Here there are so many more shades of gray. She keeps her eyes on Killian. Here people don't have one true love. Here people love freely, and love again. Even if they go back to their land this one will have left its mark on them. 

She offers him her hand. He takes it and gets to his feet with only a slight sway from the night's drinking. 

“My hero,” he drawls. “I thought you might want to throw me to the wolves. You know, metaphorically.”

“Everyone deserves a friend,” she says. 

“Even me?” he asks. “What of dear Belle? I won't apologize, you know.”

She recognizes the move or what it is. He wants so much to feel pain, and she won't give it to him. She won't forgive him for what he did to Belle either, but she knows that Belle, of all people, would understand this. 

“Friendship isn't conditional.” 

It's cheap when she turns away from him and leaves. It's the best way she knows not to hear his arguments against the friendship she's dragged him into, and to make it real and permanent. 

*

Working out with a wolf is a ridiculous idea. Working out itself is foreign to him, but stuck in this tiny town leaves his body few options to retain its strength. He runs with her, because one day soon he knows he'll need all of his strength. 

Somehow, they always seem to run at night during times of the month when she can transform. And transform she does. He doesn't see her change around anyone else, doesn't see her invite anyone else to be around her during her transformation time. He wonders if that's a sign of trust, or simply a sign that she cares less if she accidentally eats him. They begin to hold entire races, and of course she wins them all. 

Never let it be said that Captain Hook plays fair. 

They race again, and this time when she lurches forward in full wolf-form right to where the finish line is, his trap catches her and pulls her up by her legs. He collapses down to sit just past the finish line before he pulls another rope that drops her cloak on top of her and changes her back. She plops down to the ground with a grunt and glares at him. 

“I won,” he points out. 

“You cheated!”

“Yes, because becoming a wolf isn't an unfair advantage.” 

“You said-” she starts. He groans and collapses backwards. 

“Yes, I said we would race 'as we are.' I will never misspeak around you again.”

She moves to lie beside him. He points to the stars above them. “I've begun to read about the sky here. The stars are all wrong, you know. Still, I think I could navigate them.”

Ruby looks over at him. “You'll leave?”

“One day,” he says. “I'm not meant to stay in one place for so long. It makes my skin crawl.” He turns his head back to the stars overhead. Even here they're unnaturally obscured. He hates it. “I'll be needing a new crew,” he says. “A first mate.”

She doesn't pretend not to understand him, and he's grateful for that. “This is my home.”

“It's a terrible town, not even of our world.”

“It's not the town,” she says. “It's the people. I could never leave them.” 

He sighs, though he knew as much. “Going to the sea – traveling – does not mean going away forever. It was quite common aboard my ship for my men to have women who did not travel with us. They were usually whores, granted.” 

When he glances over he finds her steady gaze on him. It unnerves him, and he doesn't take being unnerved lightly. He looks back to the sky. “You'd never have the legs for it, anyway,” he says to her unspoken rejection. 

“To be on a ship, or a whore?” she asks. 

He nearly chokes from so much laughter. 

*

The fight was inevitable. She thought it would be Rumpelstiltskin, not Belle's father, but the anger against Killian boiling over was something that couldn't be stopped. 

What she doesn't see coming is her own actions. She leaps in front of him, only to have him twist her last minute. 

“No!” she barely recognizes the strangled scream as being her own. 

The knife slides into him, and he crumples forward against the ground. They are too far away, and there is not enough air, and the full moon pounds overhead. 

“Get out of here, Red,” he mutters. 

She drops her cloak and lowers herself onto her haunches as her wolf form overtakes her. The transformation is enough to send Belle's father running. She moves forward and nudges Killian's face. He stares at her but then wraps his arms around her neck in understanding. Being in this form makes things hazier. Words have no meaning, for one thing, but still she hears them as he manages to vaguely throw himself on her back. 

“Preferred the motorcycle,” he murmurs. 

She smells and feels the warm blood seeping onto her fur. Then she's off, running through town to get him to Victor as quickly as she can. He grunts and groans with each jolt. Gasps sound around them as they move through town. Her ears cock back, she growls, but she moves forward. 

There's chaos in the hospital when she comes in. She growls, aware of the people panicking around her. Victor sees her, his eyes wide. He swallows and takes a tentative step closer to her. “Ruby?” he asks. His eyes move to Hook. He moves forward to grab Hook, and she snaps at him. 

Killian isn't speaking anymore. His breath is ragged against her neck. Wounded, she remembers. He is wounded. 

Victor licks his lips and lowers himself so that he's at eye level with Ruby. “Ruby, it's me,” he says. “I need to see his injury so I can help him.”

Slowly he reaches past her and lifts Hook up. She stays where she is, and a few nurses quickly move to help Victor move Killian onto a bed. She stays seated there in the middle of the hospital's halls until Snow comes with her cloak. 

“Are you okay?” Snow asks. 

Ruby clutches her cloak to her and gets to her feet. She knows her skin is covered in blood, in his blood, and she can't bring herself to go clean it. She also can't manage the words for Snow, but Snow has known her longer than almost anyone and pulls her into a hug. 

Ruby cries into her shoulder. 

“When did this happen?” Snow asks. Ruby knows she isn't asking about the attack. 

“I don't know,” she says. “I didn't – I don't -” 

“Oh, Red,” Snow says. Snow holds Ruby's face in her hands and smiles at her. It feels like a weight is falling off her shoulders only to be replaced with a new one. Snow pulls her back into a hug and Ruby melts into her. 

*

He wakes in the hospital with a groan. Red is asleep in a chair beside him. Her clothes are different and she wears her hair in a loose braid. He tries to clear his throat, only to find it very dry. He settles on knocking a book on a nearby table to the floor and letting the sound startle her awake. 

“This is familiar,” he croaks. He raises his good hand. “No handcuffs?”

She kisses him. It's sudden and unexpected and long overdue and he leans up as much as can and tries to wrap an arm around her, only to find himself wheezing and falling back to the bed. He groans. “Air is a cruel thing.”

“Sorry,” she says. 

“It isn't often women apologize for ravaging me.”

“I wouldn't call that ravaging.”

He grins. “What would you call ravaging?” He's about to suggest she show him when he goes into another coughing fit. 

“You're fine, by the way,” she says. “Or you will be.”

He waves her off. “That was hardly the first dagger I've taken.”

She wrings her hands in her lap. “It was the first you've taken for me.”

“It was intended for me,” he says. “Your attempt at sacrifice was stupid.” 

“That's what friendship is,” she says. 

“I clearly need to get more, then,” he says. He watches her, studies the lines under her eyes and the way she won't quite look at him now. He fumbles for her hand and tugs on her as he scoots over and onto his side. Pain shoots through his side at the movement, but he's had much worse. He keeps tugging her until she reluctantly stands and bumps against the bed. 

“I can't-” she says. 

“Come on,” he says. “I've been trying to get you into bed for ages.”

She lets out a sigh to let him know how unamused with him she is. Still, she crawls into the empty space and closes her eyes. Her breathing evens out almost immediately. He wonders how long she was awake by his bed before falling asleep in the first place. 

He brushes a hand over her face and wraps a stray strand of hair around his finger. 

He isn't sure how he didn't see how much she looks like Milah before. Maybe that's why he didn't hate her as much as the others at first, or at least part of the reason. He loved Milah. More than anything. More, even, than the sea. He'd always thought that the Crocodile would kill him, and Milah would live on. What happened instead was far worse, and he knows that was the whole point. 

Killian Jones is not who he once was. He suspects he isn't the man Milah loved, either. Ruby makes him feel like maybe, one day, he won't just be a shell of what he was. Not that he would ever say such a stupidly sentimental thing. 

Her eyes flutter open and she smiles at him. 

“Your grandmother is going to eat me,” he says. 

She laughs. “She's not a wolf. She'll use her crossbow.”

“Reassuring.”

“Easier to outrun,” she murmurs, snuggling against his chest. 

He rests his chin on top of her head and falls into an easy sleep. 

*

Too soon, Ruby finds herself shaken awake. She grumbles and feels Killian pushing on her. She groggily shifts away from him and stands. “What?” she asks. 

He grins. “You are not a morning person.” She nearly growls at him. He finds that entirely too delightful. “Ms. Swan is outside,” he says. “For questioning, no doubt. I assumed being in bed with me was not your preferred location.”

The door opens as soon as he finishes, and Emma comes in. She looks at Ruby in surprise before turning to look at Killian. 

Ruby isn't entirely sure what she and Killian are. That's more complicated and simpler than she'd like, but more than anything she knows that they're friends. She slides her hand into his. He grins smugly, not at her but at Emma. 

He's impossible. He's hers. 

*

Killian makes a point of tapping on the side of the doorway with his hook to remind her that he finally has it back. If the roll of her eyes is any indication, she isn't overly impressed. 

“I'm not a kept man, you know,” he says, looking around the apartment. Their apartment. “I'm going back to sea, one day, whether its here or in our world. Maybe soon.” 

“I know,” she says. “And I'm staying wherever the others go.” 

He sighs. “You would love the sea.” 

“No, you love the sea,” she says. 

“We could stay on land during your time of the month – both of them, if you like.” 

She glares at him. 

“Fine,” he says, studying the dirt under his fingernails. 

She steps closer to him, and smiles at him. “I'll miss you,” she says. “But you'll come back. As long as you always come back, what does the in-between matter?”

“Don't know,” he says. “I might find a lovely sea wench.”

She kisses him and crosses the room to sit on the sofa. “Sure, that could happen,” she says, not at all meaning it. Blasted woman. “But for now we're going to watch this movie.”

He groans. “Not another romantic comedy.”

She smiles wickedly. “A pirate movie, actually.”

“You mock me,” he says, even as he takes the seat beside her. 

She kisses his cheek. “Only when you need mocking.”

He will leave, he knows that. He hopes they'll all end up back in their world, with any luck, but even without that he can't stay here much longer without going crazy. Red may be the only reason he hasn't already lost his mind. He glances over at her as she starts the movie and then rests her head against his shoulder. 

Yes, he will leave. 

But he'll come back. Always. 

She is his harbor, for better or worse.


End file.
